When a large hospital in an urban area is shut down by ransomware, the disruption can be significant, but when a rural hospital faces a similar cyber outage, the impact on patient safety and the community can be extreme, said Nitin Natarajan of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

While ransomware attacks against medical devices don't happen often, disruptive cyber incidents that affect the availability of the IT systems that medical devices rely on are a big concern that needs the industry's critical attention, said Jessica Wilkerson of the FDA.

It's crucial for healthcare sector organizations to vet their artificial intelligence tech vendors in the same robust way they scrutinize the privacy and security practices of all their other third-party suppliers, said attorney Linda Malek of the law firm Crowell & Moring.

Healthcare organizations should rethink some of their approach to security, enhancing focus on insider threats, improving cyber awareness training and securing mobile applications and devices, said Ryan Witt, vice president of industry solutions at Proofpoint, discussing findings of a new study.

It's yet to be determined whether a handful of states or the federal government will lead the charge in adopting comprehensive regulations involving the use of artificial intelligence in healthcare, said regulatory attorney Betsy Hodge, a partner in law firm Akerman.

As threat actors continue to evolve their attacks to circumvent security measures, cyber insurers are raising the bar for prospective healthcare security clients. Underwriters are increasing their scrutiny and adding new coverage requirements, said Chris Henderson of cybersecurity company Huntress.

Recent mega data breaches involving third-party vendors - such as the Change Healthcare cyberattack - are intensifying the spotlight on critical security risk management and governance issues for business associates and other suppliers, said regulatory attorney Rachel Rose.

Preparing healthcare organizations to respond to and rebound from a disruptive ransomware attack is akin to implementing a "12-step program," said Dr. Eric Liederman, CEO of consultancy CyberSolutionsMD and recently retired long-serving director of medical informatics at Kaiser Permanente.

Authentication requiring stored credentials is not only vulnerable to phishing and other compromises, but using these credentials can also be cumbersome for busy clinicians, said Tina Srivastava, co-founder of Badge, a provider of deviceless, tokenless authentication technology.

Unifying fragmented network security technology under a single platform allows for consistent policy application across on-premises, cloud and hybrid environments, said Palo Alto Networks' Anand Oswal. Having a consistent policy framework simplifies management and improves security outcomes.

The interconnectedness of medical devices, which generate data that can be distributed to multiple systems that are often managed by different policies, presents privacy concerns that device manufacturers must address, said Adam Hesse, CEO of Full Spectrum.